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242 posts categorized "AshleyMadison"

MARKETINGWEEK - Sep 27 - Last summer, a team of hackers released the details of 35M members of Ashley Madison. Since then, Ashley Madison has added 5M new users, according to the company's new CEO Rob Segal. Their latest TV campaign focused on women. "The campaign made us grow our female users by 18%." It has replaced the provocative previous slogan, 'Life's short. Have an affair' to 'Find your moment'. The overarching goal is to make Ashley Madison a female-focused brand that prioritises open relationships rather than affairs.

CHANNEL 4 - Aug 31 - The premiere of a documentary "Sex, Lies And Cyber Attacks", investigating Ashley Madison, is airing on Channel4 tomorrow (Wednesday Aug 31st at 10pm GMT). AM was hacked last summer and the private details of its ~30M users were made public. When the hackers published internal company emails, there appeared to be a lot more going on behind the scenes.

AAP - Aug 23 - Avid Life Media (now RubyLife.com), AshleyMadison's parent company, has agreed to court-enforceable improvements in handling personal information. In the first ever joint Australian and Canadian privacy investigation, the commissioners investigated ALM's retention of personal info after profiles were deactivated. The report made a series of recommendations, all of which ALM has agreed to implement.

FORBES - July 19 - AshleyMadison has made a big marketing push. They changed up their leadership team, renamed parent company AvidLife Media to Ruby, and launched their first-ever TV ad with a new tagline. But there has not been any mentions about what the company had changed related to the 'Full Delete' service that costs $20. Has the company shut down that service? If it's just going to make superficial changes to the brand name and add new executives to the leadership team, that has nothing really to do with the data breach.

WALL STREET JOURNAL - July 12 - The renaming is "an important step in our journey to completely rebuild the company as a relevant, digital dating innovator that truly cares for our customers," said recently-named Ruby Chief Executive Rob Segal. They also plan to repositioning its Ashley Madison brand, dropping its tagline "Life is Short. Have an Affair" for "Find Your Moment." The brand's logo - a wedding ring icon and "hush" imagery—has been replaced by a "modern, discreet" wordmark. A new global digital campaign and TV advertising will take a more understated approach, with no dialogue and a cinematic feel.

CNNWIRE - July 9 - For years, AM threatened to send paperwork to users' homes if they disputed their bills — potentially revealing cheaters to their spouses. Avid Life Media has confirmed that these tactics were employed by AM until recently. "The company has a new team, new leadership and that kind of communication is firmly in the past," company representative Debra Quinn said. "That past practise stopped when our new CEO Rob Segal and new President James Millership took the helm." Avid Life Media said it is trying to turn itself around ever since a hack last year. "Over the next few months, our team will be working hard to introduce more discreet features, privacy safeguards and most important, to rebuild trust over the long-term," Quinn said.

WALL STREET JOURNAL - July 5 - Avid Life Media said Tuesday that it had appointed a new chief executive, Rob Segal, and President, James Millership, to lead the company as it tries to recover from its widespread data breach last year. They both joined Avid Life Media in April. Mr. Segal previously founded Segal Communications, which was later acquired by advertising firm Interpublic Group of Cos., while Mr. Millership worked as CFO and COO of online gaming platform WorldGaming, bought last year by entertainment company Cineplex. "The company is truly sorry for how people's lives and relationships may have been affected by the criminal theft of personal information," Mr. Segal said.

REUTERS - July 5 - The company faces a mountain of problems, including U.S. and Canadian class action lawsuits filed on behalf of customers whose personal information was posted online, and allegations that it used fake profiles to manipulate some customers. Avid said it does not know the focus of its own FTC investigation. Asked about the fembot messages sent to U.S. customers, Segal said: "that's a part of the ongoing process that we're going through ... it's with the FTC right now."

FUSION.NET - June 21 - Until last year Noel Biderman was the CEO of Ashley Madison. Since the hack, it appears Biderman has been employed in the business of erasing his past, through the creation of lots of new sites, a reborn Twitter account, and Google ads on his name that seek to steer users toward websites about the new Noel. Gone are images of Biderman lounging under pink velvet bedding, replaced by photos of Biderman fishing, coaching football, and palling around with his wife. On his professional website, NoelBiderman.com, a lengthy bio mentions that Biderman has "occupied roles as President, CEO, COO" but fails to mention Ashley Madison. Instead, the site details his pre-Ashley Madison career as a sports agent and an executive at a real estate website. A separate website, NoelBiderman.org, expands on his community involvement.

ITPRO.CO.UK - May 9 - The Ashley Madison attack in July 2015 revealed the sensitive data of 37M people. Adult Friend Finder was also hacked, with the personal details of 4M users leaked, including their IP addresses and dates of birth. More recently, BeautifulPeople also had their details leaked online. "Dating sites contain a very high level of personal information, which can be very valuable in the wrong hands and quite damaging for those involved," said Rob Norris, director of enterprise and cybersecurity for EMEIA at Fujitsu. Are dating sites targeted more frequently than other sites? According to David Emm, principal security researcher as Kaspersky Lab, the answer is not necessarily. "Dating sites certainly draw a lot of media interest," said Emm. "Hacks happen to other sites but is a less newsworthy story."

GRAHAMCLULEY.COM - Mar 2 - The continuing story of the Ashley Madison hack, has taken another ugly twist. Some users received blackmail letters demanding $2K or their loved ones will be told about their membership of Ashley Madison. A number of people who refused to pay the Bitcoin ransom are now reporting that follow-up letters have been sent addressed to their wives.

OPW - Feb 23 - The press just loves Tinder. In our "Best And Worst Press Coverage" overview, Tinder was the absolute winner in 2015. The mobile dating app appeared in the news on a daily basis with mainly positive press hits (except when CEO Sean Rad was interviewed;).

CNN MONEY - Feb 2 - If users want to remain anonymous on the site, Ashley Madison will now let them add a mask to their profile picture. After the hack, AM assured its members that it worked hard to tighten its security protocols. Masks don't quite seem to be the solution.

by David GoldmanThe full article was originally published at WCVB, but is no longer available.

ROLLING STONE - Feb 1 - A hacker group called The Impact Team leaked internal memos from Ashley Madison's parent company, Avid Life, which revealed the widespread use of sexbots. 59% of all online traffic is generated by bots, according to the tech analyst firm, Are You a Human. AM is not the only ones using fake profiles," says Marc Lesnick, organizer of iDate. "It's definitely pervasive." In an email, Fling.com owner Abe Smilowitz writes, "We absolutely don't use fake profiles and bots… Us and AdultFriendFinder are pretty much the only guys that don't." Bot software is freely available online. Plenty of people just want some kind of customizable, convincing experience to get turned on. Facebook's $2B acquisition of Oculus Rift is one big clue that simulated life online is about to get exponentially immersive.

WASHINGTON POST - Jan 15 - People forget and don't demand changes. A report from Pew Research found that people view hacks as part of modern life. Last month, Ashley Madison claimed that ~6.5M people had signed up since the hack. It seems somehow unjust that Ashley Madison should return to business as usual. The site's only visible casualties have been the resignation of CEO Noel Biderman and a handful of yet unresolved lawsuits.

CNN - Dec 28 - At the time of the hack, Ashley Madison said it had 39M members. The website now says it has ~43M members, according to a rolling count on its homepage. That number is not easily confirmed. Parent company, Avid Life, is faced with a dozen class-action lawsuits related to the hack by customers who claim the site failed to protect their identities. Fending off the lawsuits will be expensive, even for a company that recorded $115M in sales and a $55M profit last year. Several of the lawsuits are asking for more than half a billion dollars in damages.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL - Dec 16 - The data breach that aired the personal dealings and financial information of Ashley Madison clients has yet to spur concrete changes in security. Months later, public interest in the hack has faded – and so has the incentive for companies to beef up their security. Avid Life Media will likely bounce back.

COMPUTERWEEKLY - Nov 26 - While 64% of online users would immediately stop using a site if it suffered a security attack or data breach, ~25% would continue using the site, according to a survey by NTT Com Security.